The New York Islanders will be looking to grab a 2-0 series lead when they continue their Stanley Cup semifinal clash with the Tampa Bay Lightning on Tuesday night as +175 road underdogs on the NHL odds at sportsbooks monitored by OddsShark.com.
New York drew first blood in the series with a 2-1 victory in Game 1 on Sunday, extending the team’s current win streak to four games going into Tuesday night’s matchup at Amalie Arena.
The Islanders have been red-hot since closing out the regular season on a shaky run. Losers in seven of their final 10 scheduled contests, as well as two of the first three games of their opening-round series with Pittsburgh, New York has quickly turned things around. The Islanders rebounded with three straight wins to oust the Penguins, and have avoided consecutive defeats while winning eight of their past 10 games.
[snippet id=5039904]
The team has benefited from the increasingly steady play of netminder Semyon Varlamov, who has surrendered two or fewer goals in four of his past five starts, capped by a stellar 30-save performance in Sunday’s narrow win. But with New York averaging over 3.6 goals per game over its past eight outings, the OVER has enjoyed a reliable 5-2-1 run during that stretch at sports betting sites.
The Islanders have also emerged as road warriors during the postseason, going 5-2 in seven such outings to date, and currently enjoy their first two-game road win streak against Tampa Bay since 2014. However, that has not been enough to push them over the top on the NHL playoff series prices, where they now sit deadlocked with the Lightning at -110 odds.
[snippet id=5130093]
Fresh off their third loss in six home dates during these playoffs, the Lightning return to action on Tuesday as -210 betting favourites. Sunday’s defeat extended Tampa Bay’s current losing streak in series openers played at Amalie Arena to four games, but the team has consistently rebounded by going 8-4 in its past 12 games when hosting Game 2 of a postseason series.
However, Tampa Bay’s defeat in Game 1 allowed New York to close the gap in the teams’ respective Stanley Cup odds at the sportsbooks. The Lightning now find themselves set as a +230 wager to become just the second team to record consecutive Stanley Cup wins since 1998, with the Islanders just a step back at +315 on those futures heading into Game 2.
COMMENTS
When submitting content, please abide by our submission guidelines, and avoid posting profanity, personal attacks or harassment. Should you violate our submissions guidelines, we reserve the right to remove your comments and block your account. Sportsnet reserves the right to close a story’s comment section at any time.